Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The world fall in love with selfie. Even selfie has become a word in English dictionary recently. What you don't know is that we, Indonesians, "invented" selfie.

For years young Indonesians - especially girls - take mug shot of themselves and post them in their facebook profiles. They even have certain style that I cannot explain. I just cannot describe it. (Later, when I know how I will update this.) But, trust me, we know our stuff. Selfie is our thing :)

I saw an interesting article this morning, a comparison between selfie styles in different cities. Oddly, Jakarta or Bandung is not even in the list. They got it wrong!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Here's the deal, I have (too) many email accounts. Each mail for different purposes; teaching, business, (community) public services, personals, and testing. Aside from my gmail / yahoo accounts, these email accounts reside on many mail servers, some of which my own. On one machine I have multiple outgoing email addresses and one (or two) incoming emails. The different email addresses are mainly aliases.

I use all kinds of email clients. Currently, I use mutt and Thunderbird. In the old days, I used elm, mutt, Pegasus, and Eudora. In the old email clients I can set the outgoing email address to whatever I want. Currently, this is not working with Thunderbird. It is limited to ONE username per server. (Maybe it is a way to protect users from creating fake email addresses?) How do I force it to use multiple user one one server?
(Update: this is solved by "Manage Identities" configuration in the Account Settings.)

Anyway, should I roll my own Mail User Agent (MUA)? or stick with Thunderbird (with the above solution)?

Sunday, February 23, 2014

I guess I congratulate WhatsApp too soon. Not long after WhatsApp is bought by Facebook, the system went down. (At least a couple times here in Indonesia.) As I mentioned in previous post, many Indonesians are using WhatsApp for many things (as a backup of SMS/text msg).

When you depend on a system and the system is down, you're angry. And in this particular case, looking for another solution. Fortunately, there's Telegram. I am pretty sure that MANY Indonesians are installing Telegram right now. I do. This is the moment for Telegram to seize the day. I am pretty sure that their traffic will increase significantly. (And perhaps for Twitter or Google to buy Telegram!)

One of the features Telegram puts forward is secret chat. With the new Snowden-era I am sure that many would like this feature. Although, Indonesians are not so into privacy. Cost - in this particular case, Free - is the main feature. Second is small footprint (so it can run on inexpensive devices). Way to go Telegram.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Facebook surprised many people by buying WhatsApp. Some people questioned the move, but I think it is a good move. Here's why.

In Indonesia, BlackBerry and its BBM used to be the number one messaging platform for mobil users. Since there are more than 100 million mobile users in Indonesia, the market for mobile messaging is significant. BB captured the first market. At that time, it is the only available solution.

Then came WhatsApp. We embraced it right away. The reason is that we do not have to use BB devices to run the application. Remember that BB devices used to be expensive (but, people bought them for social status and lifestyles) and you have to use BB services. Not nice. That makes non-BB users addopted WhatsApp quickly.

Personally, I don't like messaging on my phones since I tend to get quite a number of messages. I leave that to my emails. (I receive 500 emails/day.) But, people are organizing many things with WhatsApp. I have no choice but to use WhatsApp. It's free and works on my cellphones. I have no reasons to say no (like I used to do with BB).

Facebook is also (still) the number one social media in Indonesia. Although it is gradually being replaced by twitter. Facebook (#1) + WhatsApp (#1). There you go. It's all good. (Another good move is actually for Twitter to by WhatsApp - and that will kill Facebook in Indonesia.)

Congratulations to Facebook and WhatsApp for the right move. I hope you guys provide good services for us here in Indonesia.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Tomorrow, Monday, I am giving a presentation about (my) failed startups in an entrepreneurship class (EE, ITB). I started many tech companies since early 90s. These days I do mentoring for startups (and thinking of starting up); on and off campus.

Thinking of what I am going to talk. Hmm... I just tell them stories how I started my first ones in Canada and why they failed; the (inventions) ideas are to early. Then, I will talk about my startups in Indonesia; what works and what doesn't work. Let's see if we can have a good discussion.

I hope I can inspire them to become entrepreneurs and at the same time they can avoid mistakes that I made. See you in class.

Here's a short news from Indonesia. Kelud (or Kelut) erupted. This is a volcano in East Java. The eruption is big. Here, in Bandung - West Java, the sky is cloudy and a tiny layer of ashes are covering the city

I hope the people in the are safe and can get through this. Our prayers are with you.

Before this, recently, Sinabung in North Sumatra also erupted. We're living dangerously in Indonesia.